With this MB, CPU what Vid card would you get?

[daddog]

MB - Gigbyte GA-EP45T-UD3P
CPU - Q8200
Memory - 3 Gigs
All on Mwave for about $360

My question is what Vid card would you get with this? I have about $200 max I can spend on the Vid card.

I thought long and hard about a Shuttle system and llama was very helpful as I looked into them, but I decided on a desktop system.

[TheZohan]

4850/4870

you can find them for 130-150 .. take the extra 50.00-80.00  and get yourself a 8400/8500 instead of the E8200

and your probably gonna want to get 4 GIGs to keep the dual channel unless your gonna get 2 x 1 gig and 2 x 512 meg

[1701E]

Well an important question is:  What PSU do you have?
Would hate to get a GPU that can't be powered.  Although from those specs it sounds like the PSU sound be good, but we gotta be sure.

[Shamus]

4850/4870

you can find them for 130-150 .. take the extra 50.00-80.00  and get yourself a 8400/8500 instead of the E8200

and your probably gonna want to get 4 GIGs to keep the dual channel unless your gonna get 2 x 1 gig and 2 x 512 meg

I may rather have the quad.

shamus

[TheZohan]

well i would go with the Q6600 if i was to go with a Quad, (twice the cache then the Q8200) .. but the E8400 performs on par with the Q6600 and overclocks way higher, and out performes the Q8200 in gaming.

[daddog]

you can find them for 130-150 .. take the extra 50.00-80.00  and get yourself a 8400/8500 instead of the E8200

I was told the $ would be better spent on a Vid card than the CPU. That the E8200 would carry me for a while with a good vid card.

Power supply will be 500w or better.

I will be using XP so is it not a waist to get more than 3 gigs?

[1701E]

I was told the $ would be better spent on a Vid card than the CPU. That the E8200 would carry me for a while with a good vid card.

Power supply will be 500w or better.

I will be using XP so is it not a waist to get more than 3 gigs?

Wait, do you have the "E"8200 or "Q"8200?  Both are good.

PSU 500watt is a little low, but if hopefully it has good Amperage on the 12V rail.  Go for the "or better"

XP can only see 3.25GB or so, but having 3GB (3x 1GB sticks) will eliminate Dual-channel, which is faster.

[Fulmar]

You can always do 2x1gb and 2x512mb for 3gb.

[TheZohan]

getting 4 gigs will give the system resources more room to put things. giving you like 3.25 gigs on average of memory, a 1 gig video card will leave you less. but if you decide to go with 3 then make sure you keep the dual channel, running single channel memory will give you perfermance hits.

[TheZohan]

You can always do 2x1gb and 2x512mb for 3gb.

was already stated above for 3 gig configuration

[BaldEagl]

First of all it doesn't matter as much how many watts your PSU has as much as how many amps it sends down the 12V rails and both these numbers can be manufactured.  Look for an 80+ certified PSU putting out at least 30 amps on the 12V rails.  You can combine amps across multiple rails.  It's pretty easy to see if the numbers are being fudged; Watts = volts x amps x efficiency.

Also make sure the PSU you buy has the appropriate connectors for what you buy today and what you might be dreaming about for tomorrow.  Most modern (good) video cards requie a 6 pin connector but some need both 6 and 8 pin connectors.

Second the E8400/8500 are better gaming CPU's than almost any of the quad cores including the 920 I7 in most cases.  On the other hand the quad cores kick the Core2Duos all over the map in everything else given similar bus speeds and caches.  A 1066 FSB quad isn't going to kick a 1333 FSB E8400/8500 around but a 1333 quad core or any I7 will.

Aces High specifically is more CPU than GPU dependent so, if this is the primary game you play then a stonger CPU is preferable.  If you play other games more than you do this one then a stonger GPU may be advisable.

Third, make sure that no matter what you do you buy RAM in matched pairs (DDR2) otherwise you're just halving the RAM bandwidth by automatically disabling dual data rate.  If you are running 32 bit XP you will not see more than a maximum of 3.5 Gb of RAM.  Your video card, motherboard and peripherals (even empty USB ports) will all eat into the amount of addressable RAM available to the system.  For instance, I have 4 Gb of RAM and a 512 video card and Windows only recognizes 2.75 Gb of useable system RAM.  When I had two of these video cards Windows only saw 2.25 Gb of RAM.  Furthermore, no single 32 bit application can use more than 2 Gb of RAM.

All of that said, I'd go with at least 600W on the PSU, 80+ certified with a lot of 12V amps, a 1333 FSB Intel CPU as a minimum and anything from an Nvidia 9600 GT up to a 9800 GTS+ depending on your budget.  If you've already bought the Q8200 then work on the PSU and fit the card into your budget.  I'd also stick to 2 Gb of RAM unless you're planning on running Vista or a 64 bit OS or just have $ to spend.

Sorry for any typos.  I always mess up on my laptop keyboard.

[Charge]

NV9800GTX+

-C+

[TheZohan]

[/quoute Second the E8400/8500 are better gaming CPU's than almost any of the quad cores including the 920 I7 in most cases.  On the other hand the quad cores kick the Core2Duos all over the map in everything else given similar bus speeds and caches.  A 1066 FSB quad isn't going to kick a 1333 FSB E8400/8500 around but a 1333 quad core or any I7 will. /quote]

even though the Q8200 is a 1333FBS  CPU its only 2.33mhz
the Q6600 a 1066 CPU  will hold its own against it also has twice as much cache

[TheZohan]

NV9800GTX+

-C+

Heres a quote from the conclusion of a review against the 9800GTX+ and 4850 ..

"The Radeon HD 4850 continues to be a better buy than NVIDIA's GeForce
9800 GTX, even if both are priced at $199. The overclocked, 55nm 9800 GTX+ manages to barely outperform the 4850 in a few titles, but loses by a larger margin in others, so for the most part it isn't competitive enough to justify the extra $30. The 4850 also uses significantly less power than the 9800 GTX+, and AMD
was quick to point out that by the time the 9800 GTX+ ships that it will also have factory overclocked 4850s. That should make things even more interesting, because honestly, a factory overclocked Radeon HD 4850 is far more attractive to us than an overclocked GTX+.

In a little over 12 hours we'll be able to complete the story with a full look at AMD's RV770 GPU and the Radeon HD 4870, so for a full, detailed performance analysis
come back then. Until then, in short, the 9800 GTX+ doesn't really change anything for NVIDIA. " This doesnt sound good for nVidia. Theyll have to reduce pricing, or find that rabbit and their ......hat 

the prices have changed since the review but you get the idea

[Denholm]

You do realize that the review was written on pre-production models? That would make it almost obsolete by now.